


like the stars love the night sky

by mushydesserts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bad Accents, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Luna and Nyx on the run, Road Trips, bad costumes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 01:57:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10561462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushydesserts/pseuds/mushydesserts
Summary: Lunafreya Nox Fleuret in denim cutoffs. Nyx turns scarlet red."Sorry," Luna says. "Ah meant, s'breezy fine in here. Reckon I culd get used to somethin' lahk it."Five road disguises that Lunafreya Nox Fleuret and Nyx Ulric wear badly, and one that they could stand to wear a little less well. (Kinkmeme fill.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [this kinkmeme prompt.](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3016.html?thread=1646792#cmt1646792)
> 
> It started silly and then got a bit sad. Sorry about that. 
> 
> Inspired in part by the Colin Firth and Emily Blunt flick Arthur Newman; credit for the last scene goes completely to the movie. And there's a Pulp Fiction reference.

i. 

 

"Greetings, traveller. My hapless brother and I find ourselves in a pickle on this fine day."

The pickup truck driver eyes the hitchhiking couple suspiciously. The woman, hair undone and tangled like a bird's nest, is wearing a potato sack over the tattered remains of what might once have been a dress. The man, slightly older than her and sharing no family resemblance to her whatsoever, is wearing leather trousers, no shirt, and and a plastic rain poncho.

"Kind stranger, might we request transport to the next city?" the woman says.

The driver scratches his head and looks between them. "What's with that accent? She talks like the Princess of Tenebrae," he says.

The man in the rain poncho pinches the bridge of his nose and waves the driver on. "You know what," he says, "Just go, man. We'll get the next one."

 

ii.

 

They've been on the road for nearly a full day now, walking west along the highway. No more than a couple cars have passed by, and they were headed in the wrong direction. One driver was kind enough to toss them some bottled water, and they've managed to find some funguars and steal some eggs from birdbeast nests to snack on (with a wince and an apology from Nyx), but other than that, there's been no sign of life.

Luna had discarded her heels a couple hours outside of the city, tossed them into a flooded mineshaft to prevent them from being found. She and Nyx have been taking turns with his boots. Their sheer lack of resources has meant that every time they've come across an abandoned car, they've stood a moment of silence for its missing occupants, and then Nyx has jammed his daggers into the trunk to see their loot.

The third car yield results. "Hello, what have we here?"

"What is it?"

Nyx pulls out a box of wires, an empty gasoline jug, a small box of ration bars, a baseball cap, a dusty old coat, and what looks like a long, bent board with wheels on the bottom.

He hands a ration bar to Luna, who peels the wrapper off and takes a large bite. Nyx himself examines the board.

"What's it for?"

"You never had these as a kid, your Highness?"

"Not that I can recall."

"It's a longboard. Everybody wanted one back in school in Galahd. Libertus broke his wrist trying to do a flip off dump truck once."

"These are meant for sporting?"

"When you do it right, yeah. Mostly we'd hook a rope up to the back of a car and drag each other around the outskirts of town."

"That sounds dangerous."

Nyx turns the board over fondly in his hands. He studies the stretch of flat road ahead of them.

"Nyx?"

He bends, and experimentally sends the board along the pavement. It rolls an easy ten feet, smooth and quiet. "Huh."

Luna looks slightly concerned now.

Nyx, seemingly making up his mind, jams the cap on his head, and turns the visor to the back. He walks to the board, sets a foot on it, and looks back at Luna. He holds out his hand.

"Princess?"

Luna approaches with some skepticism. "Is this safe?"

"Of course." Nyx easily scoops the barefoot princess up off the ground. Luna pales, though grips his arm to steady herself.

"Nyx, are you sure this is the wisest idea," she says, but Nyx grins and kicks off.

 

iii.

 

The three customers walk out of the diner, chatting worriedly about the rumors of daemon hauntings near the chocobo ranch.

"They wouldn't go after the chocobos. Too small."

"They go after people, don't they? People are smaller than chocobos."

"People are also dumber than chocobos," one snorts. They near their car at the end of the parking lot.

A masked man in a long coat emerges from the nearby shadows. The three falter. He pulls out a pistol and cocks it.

"Everybody be cool, this is a robbery," he says calmly.

A masked woman bursts out of the bushes, yelling and holding a shotgun like a bat. She's in a rain poncho and combat boots that are far too large for her.

"Any of you fuckin' pricks move," she shouts, gold hair flying around her face, "And I'll execute every motherfuckin' last one of ya!"

The three customers's expressions swerve rapidly between alarm and confusion.

"Are y'all lost?" one hazards.

"You know, the folks at the diner are pretty nice," another says. "They can probably help ya out."

Nyx sighs and lowers his pistol. "Just... gimme the keys," he says lamely, holding out his hand.

The customers don't move.

Nyx beckons to Luna, who obediently hands him the shotgun. He pumps it and aims it. _"Now,"_ he barks.

"Okay, okay," one of them stammers, and digs into his pocket.

 

iv.

 

The gas station attendants are staring.

Luna is wearing a baseball cap, shades and the long dusty coat in the passenger's seat. Nyx, having filled the tank, is at the counter.

"Is she all right?" the cashier says.

"Who, my wife?" Nyx says, rummaging through the poncho. "Yeah, she's fine. We're, uh, we're on our way to see her family. Reunions make her a little tense."

The cashier looks concerned. Nyx glowers. "What are you lookin' at?"

The cashier yanks his head back around. "Nothing," he says.

Nyx counts out the change, and swipes a packet of cigarettes off the counter.

"We need to find you something less conspicuous to wear," he mumbles when he gets back to the driver's seat.

Luna shrugs. "The next store, 'en."

"There's not much we can buy with what's left of the money."

"Don't ya worry, ah'm not expectin' any darn finery."

Nyx looks at her as he starts the car.

"Waht?"

"Why are you talking like that?"

"Ah'm talkin' like a Lucian."

"That's not a Lucian accent."

"Ah am offended, sir. Don't you be sayin' terribahl things aboht may accent."

"You just changed accents in the middle of that sentence."

"Oh, well ah thought ain't nobahdy goin' notice."

Nyx frowns.

"Are you enjoying this?"

Luna smiles.

As they peel out onto the freeway, Luna steals a cigarette out of the carton and flicks the lighter. To Nyx's mortification, she takes a long drag, then coughs until she tears up. Then she raises it to her lips again and ducks neatly out of the way when Nyx makes a grab for it.

 

Nyx walks out of the thrift store in tinted shades with a red bandanna tied around his neck. His jacket is leather and touts close on to fifteen zippers. His ripped black denim trousers feature a fringe and a thousand tiny metal studs. He winces and pulls at the crotch awkwardly.

Luna eyes him.

"I don't know about this," Nyx says.

"It's very handsome," Luna offers. "It looks like the Crowsguard dress."

"This is why I'm happy not to be Crownsguard," Nyx mutters.

 

Luna emerges from the change room next and the entire universe stops for a second.

Lunafreya Nox Fleuret in denim cutoffs. Nyx turns scarlet red.

"Have you tried these?" Luna tugs at the waistband. Her bright red top leaves most of her midriff bare, and her denim jacket is two sizes too small. "They were supposedly in fashion last summer."

"Can't say I have. Is... Is  that comfortable, your Highness?"

"Very much so," she says. "It's very breezy."

A child walks by, staring openly. A man in a truck honks his horn. Luna bends over to adjust her boots, and a woman passing by drops her ice cream.

"Sorry," Luna says. "Ah meant, s'breezy fine in here. Reckon I culd get used to somethin' lahk it."

"Okay," Nyx says, "Maybe we can try something different."

 

v.

 

"Well," the woman says apologetically. "I know we could use more dishwashers, but that's my son on shift in the back today, learnin' some responsibilities."

"Ma," the voice says, "We could use some help."

The woman turns and snaps over her shoulder, "And I could use a new microwave oven after you put the can a' glue in there, but we don't always get what we want, do we?"

The voice grumbles.

"Anyway," the woman says, turning back to Luna, "We already got a Kenny..."

Both Nyx and Luna turn to look at the figure in the crow costume standing outside the window. It waves back slowly.

"... But there is a promotion happenin' next week, and I could use some more help gettin' the word out. We got a box of flyers comin' in this afternoon, and there are costumes in the back. It don't pay a lot, but... y'all wanna see if you're up for it?"

"At this point," Nyx says, "All we're hoping for is enough to buy a meal and put some clothes on our back."

"Well then, I'll be happy to throw in a coupon. Come with me."

 

"You know there's a yearly festival in Altissia," Luna says, muffled.

"You ever dress up for it?"

"I did wear wings and run around leaping off the fountains one year. My brother had to stop me from falling into the canals."

Nyx sighs. He adjusts the moogle's head. "Kinda smells funny in here," he confesses.

"Would you like to trade?"

"Nah, this one's a tight enough fit as it is."

"I must admit, I never expected that the best way to elude captivity would be to dress up as a large bird."

"Well, you know, wild chocobos can be pretty vicious."

"As can moogles, I'm sure."

Nyx raises his arms experimentally. "Kupo," he says.

"Kweh," Luna says softly.

They stare at each other.

Luna wordlessly hands him a stack of flyers. He shoves them into his pouch.

"Let's get this show on the road," he says weakly.

 

 

vi.

 

"We're going to have to pick one of them," Nyx says.

"Mm." Luna stands beside him, shading her eyes from the sun, absently scanning the houses before them.

Their stolen car is parked in the shade. They have enough gas to last them to the next rest stop, but they're down to the last of the gil they'd gotten for the dress-up gig, and they can't afford to linger much longer lest the Empire catch on.

As they had passed more crumbling signage pointing travellers in the direction of some settlement whose name was long-forgotten, Nyx had said quietly, "You're not going to like this."

But Luna had merely laid her hand on his and said, "I'm sorry. These were your people, too."

And so they had driven in silence through the edges of the abandoned town, through broken glass and twisted metal and gunfire-scoured rock and the burnt stumps of old trees, the shelled-out remains of what had once been homes and businesses and gathering places. The Empire had been here and had gone, and left nothing worth staying for.

They picked through a couple shops with smashed windows first, but discovered that the cash registers had already been broken into and most of the products on the shelves were unuseable. There was an aisle full of dusty stuffed marlboros and wooden mesmenirs that gave Nyx pause, and Luna stopped briefly to examine some sheaves of delicate silver-lined notepaper, but they moved on without a word.

The local diner had been ravaged by some sort of daemon,  if the burn marks and the smashed ceiling tiles were anything to go by. A gas station with heavily-graffitied billboards contained nothing but yellow stacks of out-of-date newspapers.

Eventually, they had trekked out to the residential areas, where some of the smaller houses hadn't yet been touched. The residents were likely long gone, and as with the abandoned cars, some of what they had left behind might yet serve the living.

They opt not to enter a house with a caved-in roof, nor one overgrown with vines and showing signs of monster nesting. They pass a few other houses with front doors hanging off the hinges. Eventually, they find a small white house with upended clay pots on the stone walkway leading up to the door. The windows are dusty, but intact. A car on the driveway is missing its bumper, and as they pass it, Nyx notices its hood is decorated with old silk flowers. There's streamers trailing from the back, and a sign with curling pink letters: _Just Married._

Nyx knocks before entering. They wait for an answer, but both know it won't come.

The door creaks open, and they walk through the narrow entryway.

Nyx heads for the kitchen first. He finds a toolbox under the sink, some canned food in the cupboards. He piles these on the rickety kitchen table. Nearby, Luna examines the framed photographs on the wall, and a shelf full of books.

Nyx walks into the bathroom, then the back room; he finds some soap, toilet paper, and batteries. On the back porch there's two pairs of shoes: a man's work boots and a woman's sandals. Nyx swallows and turns away.

He puts the items with the rest on the table, and begins loading them into an empty bin before he realizes Luna is nowhere to be found.

"Luna?"

There's no reply. He turns around in confusion, and then hears the creak of floorboards from upstairs.

He walks into the front hall. "Princess?"

There's another creak, and as he turns the corner, he looks up and his breath catches.

Luna is at the top of the stairs, one hand resting on the railing. She's wrapped in an unfamiliar dress, soft, cascading white lace draped over her curves, nearly transparent, silver in the low light.

"Luna," Nyx says warily.

She looks down at the skirt between her fingers, and touches the fabric lightly. Her face is soft, reverent. Nyx feels a tug of some sort of pain in his chest.

It's not as if Nyx has forgotten how this journey began. Though the news stations are fond of reporting that the Prince and the Princess are dead, Luna's clearly not, and it's likely that Prince Noctis is still waiting for her somewhere, on the run just as they are, waiting to hear news of her survival. The wedding date had already been set by the time of the treaty signing. There was a celebration at the end of the road, or there was meant to be.

Nyx wonders if Luna had some sort of work of art done on a mannequin somewhere, something gorgeous and designer that was made to fit her like a second skin, something befitting a Princess, an Oracle, a Queen. He wonders if she could possibly have been more beautiful in it than she is in this one, borrowed from a ghost house in a bombed-out town in the middle of nowhere.

"Luna, put that back. Luna. Your Highness."

Luna glances at him and smiles weakly. "Darlin'," she declares. "Git on up here an' act like a husband."

Nyx's heart skips a beat. He glances away. "We'll get you to Altissia, Princess. I swear. Now, take that off."

Luna's mouth trembles and for a horrible moment, Nyx thinks she might cry. But then she pauses and says in the careful, sad tones of some newlywed girl in Duscae that she would never meet and never be —

"You take it off, sweetheart."

Nyx's head shoots up.

Luna is looking at him defiantly, color in her cheeks.

"It's yer honeymoon."

She turns and disappears up the stairs.

Nyx grips the bannister for a long moment, ordering himself not to sway.

Then he starts after her.

 

He kisses her like he hopes a princess would like to be kissed. She kisses back like like a girl who has all the time in the world to love the boy she's chosen.

"Are you sure?" He asks her, fingers on the button at the base of her neck, her skin creamy against his thumb.

Her fingers wrap around his wrist and she leans into him. "We deserve to be happy," she says.

He tells her in the rough cadence he remembers his father used to whisper to his mother, when he and his sister were small and his parents thought they were asleep,

 

_I_ _love you like the stars love the night sky._

 

Maybe she's dreaming of her prince. Nyx doesn't know. But he's a soldier without a king to defend, and she's a queen without a country to rule, and this might be all they're getting.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (this was originally written as commentbox fic without any capitalization or proper punctuation, but I've edited it for easier reading. the original's still on the kinkmeme.) 
> 
> thanks for the love. [mushydesserts.tumblr.com](https://mushydesserts.tumblr.com/) if you wanna find me!


End file.
